Please help ID book

[Porter]

Years ago i read a novel about giant automatic spaceship designed to carry earth survivors to a new world. There was a malfunction and it didn't land but kept going for generations. As time passed the elders sealed off the upper level to prevent panic and told everyone it was a forbidden zone with monsters.There were no windows and later generations assumed it was a normal world and lost all knowledge of being on a ship. Finally, curiosity led a young boy to explore and found the command center with windows. The rest of the book was about learning to take control and land. Great story but I can't remember the title. Can anyone help?

[psikeyhackr]

That is somewhat like Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky but not quite unless you misremember some details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky

psik

[Porter]

That is somewhat like Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky but not quite unless you misremember some details.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky

psik

Don't think thats it but very close, thanks.

[Ropie]

Sounds a lot like Non Stop (sometimes known as Starship in the US) by Brian Aldiss. One of my favourite SF novels

[Porter]

Think thats it. Many thanks.

[psikeyhackr]

Sounds a lot like Non Stop (sometimes known as Starship in the US) by Brian Aldiss. One of my favourite SF novels

I ran across that plenty of times but I think I refused to read it because it sounded to similar to Orphans of the Sky. According to Goodreads Heinlein's book is better. No one rated the Aldiss book at 5 whereas 20% of the readers did that for Orphans..

psik

[Pennarin]

Are there children - adolescents, really - in Non Stop? No adults left but one who reveals himself to a lone child who has managed on his own to make a computer console work, and the child becomes his student until all the other children can be taught the old knowledge. Is this Non Stop?

[Ropie]

Are there children - adolescents, really - in Non Stop? No adults left but one who reveals himself to a lone child who has managed on his own to make a computer console work, and the child becomes his student until all the other children can be taught the old knowledge. Is this Non Stop?

I don't think so.

[owlcroft]

The general class is called "Generation Ship". A common sub-class (perhaps even the majority) is the "forgotten knowledge" generation ship, in which the occupants no longer realize they're in a starship but think that the ship is the whole universe. The titles listed at the Wikiepedia link herein may contain the one you are seeking, but that list is far from exhaustive.

[JimF]

That sounds a little like the last book in Ben Bova's exiles trilogy, end of exile. Although it has been over 30 years since I read the series.